COLUMN: Cat on viral video is my hero

Who’s your hero? Do you have one? I had enough to go around, if you needed one. Now, however, they are all gone. EXCEPT ONE!

Bill Williams

Who’s your hero? Do you have one?

I had enough to go around, if you needed one. Now, however, they are all gone.

EXCEPT ONE!

And that’s the cat that saved the little boy’s life.

That’s the cat that rose from a lazy morning in the sun to descend upon a nasty dog like a flaming torch from hell.

I saw that battle and cheered the outcome; I probably woke my neighbors across the street.

This cat is legendary by now. This cat should be enshrined. I think it needs a special seat beside the president when Barack Obama gives his next State of the Union. It can show the president how to do things in a hurry. The cat saved that little boy’s life in 10 seconds and was back licking and yawning as the dog was trying to figure out what hit him.

That cat had never done anything like that in its life. It was lying there with its mind wandering around like smoke when it saw a dog flinging the little boy around and nobody doing anything about it.

In one huge burst of energy, it sprang from its downy pad and landed on the mutt with the force of a small atomic bomb.

The dog might have drawn many conclusions, but it was the one that told him, “Get the hell out of here!” that sent him scampering for the safety of whatever he could find.

He made it back to his own territory and had to lick the wounds that were left there by that sweet-faced little cat.

Meanwhile, the cat lay there in the glow of victory. Sunshine never felt so good. And no cat ever looked so regal … lying there, grinning, like a passive creature in its cave.

Good and evil. The battle goes on. This time, good prevailed again, thanks to a little cat that saw a need and filled it.

STRANGE, BUT what I am going to relate to you now happened to me the day after the cat-dog episode.

I was nodding in my easy chair in our living room when the newspaper fell from my benumbed fingers and roused me from my slumber to yawn and look around.

My chair sits close to the window that looks out on a grass bank and, beyond that, woods that find birds and other animals who live there.

I had just sat back down and was checking the obits to make sure my name wasn’t listed there. The sun was beginning its slow fade into darkness, and I put low priority on a trip to the bathroom. That could wait.

That was the scene when a rush of screeching and snorting and caterwauling took place just outside my window. If it hadn’t been for the window, I could have reached out and touched whatever it was. No, I wouldn’t have done that.

There was a lot of dust and sounds of animals trying to curse. And quick movement. There was a small fur body trying to get away. It went by my window in chaos and disorder, followed closely by what looked like a gray fox.

One split second later, they disappeared around the corner of the house, and I was making haste in the direction they had gone. It took me a few seconds to catch up with my thoughts.

That was long enough.

By the time, I got there, this huge, gray cat had caught that squirrel and was heading into the woods.

Mealtime.

Bill Williams is a former editor of The Gazette and has contributed to its pages for more than 60 years.